


New Beginnings

by Baroness_Blixen



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Alternate Ending, F/M, Movie: Fight The Future, X-Files Revisited Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-15
Updated: 2016-10-15
Packaged: 2018-08-22 13:40:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8287687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Baroness_Blixen/pseuds/Baroness_Blixen
Summary: The FTF hallway scene re-imagined – there’s definitely no bee.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the X-Files: Revisited Challenge on tumblr. This was so much fun! I hope these challenges never stop coming and I'd like to thank 2momsmakearight for making this one happen as well as leiascully for the OctoberFicFest idea as that one got my back into writing. So thank you, honestly.

Her first instinct is to call her mother. Anything that distracts her from the decision that has been made for her, taken away from her. A decision that wants to take her away from this place she knows as her home. And away from Mulder. When the words first registered with her – reassignment, effective immediately - she wondered how she could tell Mulder. Or rather how she could not tell him. Call him and give him the gist: hey, I’m moving to Salt Lake City, Utah. She wondered if she could write him a letter without her new address, leave it on his desk and just disappear. It’s ironic, she thinks: isn’t it Mulder who has a knack for just leaving, for just ditching her without a second thought.

Unfortunately, Dana Scully is not that kind of person.

So instead of calling her mother and instead of mulling over what to do next, she drives over to Mulder’s apartment. After all this time, after five years of basically being each other’s shadow, she owes him this. Scully doesn’t think about what he’s going to say. For all she knows he’ll be happy to see her go. Hasn’t she been a nuisance to his great search all this time? Her abduction, her cancer, all those distraction to lead him away from what was really important. Finding his sister. The words he said to her years ago in the first of way too many hotel rooms: nothing else matters. Now, she thinks, he can go back. They won. Whoever they are; they finally won. Dana Scully is giving up.

She knocks before she enters his apartment. There’s determination written on his face as he turns to her. Taking in her disheveled look, it turns into a question. Scully never even thought about going home first. Change and take a shower, maybe think about all of this for more than five seconds. “Efffective immediately” still rang in her eyes as she didn’t even wait for the elevator to take her down to Mulder’s office. She quickly wrote her letter of resignation, printed it and left it with Skinner’s secretary. Now she’s here. Telling Mulder is the last step she has to take to make it real. Once she tells him, it’ll be over.

“You can’t quit now, Scully.” She should have known this, she thinks. Maybe she would have had she thought about this. Mulder doesn’t give up. He’ll stare up at the dark sky until an alien falls on his head. He’ll never stop searching, he’ll never stop reaching.

“I need you on this, Scully.”

“You don’t need me, Mulder. You never have. I’ve just held you back,” she can’t stand the look in his eyes; like a beat up puppy trying to make it right. There’s no making it right, not anymore. It’s the moment she realizes she’s made peace with it. The FBI, the work – Mulder – she’s done, it’s done.

“I gotta go.”

“You wanna tell yourself that so you can quit with a clear conscience, you can, but you’re wrong!” Scully feels Mulder close behind her; too close. There’s a freshness about him like he’s showered recently. That’s all that Scully wants now: take off these clothes, burn them maybe, take a shower and start to forget.

“Why did they assign me to you in the first place, Mulder? To debunk your work, to rein you in, to shut you down.” She wants to leave, she really does, but he’s just too damn close and too persistent. He’s always been too needy, too stubborn; he’s just too much.

“But you saved me! As difficult and as frustrating as it’s been sometimes, your goddamned strict rationalism and science have saved me a thousand times over! You’ve kept me honest … you’ve made me a whole person. I owe you everything … Scully, and you owe me nothing. I don’t know if I wanna do this alone… I don’t even know if I can … and if I quit now, they win.”

She doesn’t want to hear any of this. It’s not the truth. Mulder, the endless seeker of the truth, is feeding her lies. Is trying to persuade her and she – what can do? She listens. She’s always listened to him. But like so many times, his version of the truth is not hers. Her feeling of peace, of being done with all of this, it collapses. It falls apart right here in this hallway she’s walked a thousand times. Today’s the last. It has to be the last time. This is her goodbye.

Scully kisses his forehead; this is their thing and she wants him to remember this. He’s so warm, he feels so strong and she feels herself weaken. She can’t draw from his strength; instead he’s draining her. Scully can’t let go. Five years of this. Five years of breathing this man in, of being by his side. His words ring in her ears now: her saving him (but hasn’t he saved her, too?), her keeping him honest (but hasn’t he been the most challenging, the most interesting part of her life, too?) and if he quit now… he’s not quitting, she is. Only her. She pushes him back, not hard, but not gently either, to stare at him. His eyes are hooded like so often when he’s about to fall asleep in the car even though he tells her he’s not tired. This time, though, she’d believe him. His eyes are not one of a tired man; he’s a man with a plan, a man with a desire.

Once upon a time Scully entertained the idea of Them. They were a unit in almost everything; partners, friends and confidents. She figured one day they would add lovers to that list. It seemed like an unspoken agreement. There seemed to be no space between them anyway, so why waste it? But that was a long, long time ago. She should not have come here, she realizes. She should have called, should have written. She should have just disappeared from his life. Except. There’s this tiny voice, and she’s been ignoring it all this time, that chuckles at her naivety. That tiny voice mocks her, reminds her she doesn’t really want to leave. She doesn’t want to leave the x-files, but mostly she doesn’t want to leave Mulder. That’s the real reason she came here.

The thought surrounds her as she sees the shift in his eyes, the change in the way his hand cradles her cheek. He’s drawing closer to her and she can’t help but stare. She feels his lips on hers and her eyes just close; she gives in to this dream for a moment. His lips settle on hers gently at first. They feel like heaven, a paradise she’s always wanted to visit. Mulder’s hands roam her back, draw her even closer and she follows him easily. His tongue pushes between her lips, now with more urgency and her dream turns into a nightmare.  
Once upon a time, she thinks, she was convinced it would happen. Maybe in a cheap hotel room in the middle of a case. Or maybe after a particular hard case. Maybe… just maybe. This, however, is not a possibility. This is not one of her many dreams of Mulder and Scully getting together. His tongue in her mouth suddenly feels like a dead weight, it feels wrong and she feels herself getting sick. She pushes at him and he misunderstands, trying to draw her even closer. So Scully pushes again, harder. Their mouths separate with a loud smack and he stares at her. There’s no apology in his eyes, only confusion.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Scully snaps at him. Her lips are still moist, she can still taste him.

“I thought I – we…”

“You *thought* what? That you could fuck me into staying?”

“What? No!” He takes a step towards her and Scully retreats. The confusion on his face is replaced by hurt; his eyes are wild. She’s never rejected him and she realizes with a sick feeling that this is what he’s counted on. Butter her up with sweet words of nothingness and then go in for the kill. He’s a psychologist; he must have known that she has feelings for him that go beyond those of friendship. And he’s used them. For the first time in so many years Scully thinks she can see clearly. It’s as if someone has lifted the curtain and she sees it, the big scam, the great lie.

“Oh yes. What made you kiss me today of all days?” She’s waited so long. So long to feel him against her, to find out what he tastes like. Not like this; not like raw selfishness.

“I – I don’t know.”

“This seemed like a good moment to you?”

“You were leaving, I was just-”

“Exactly. I’m leaving. You thought you could make me stay by-,” Scully stops herself, chuckles humorlessly and stares at him. There are still tears stinging her eyes and he looks blurry. This is how she’ll remember him; as a blurry picture, a constant pull towards something she could never quiet see or touch.

“I’m sorry, Mulder. You really don’t need me. You want me – not sexually – but you want me to follow you like some puppy. That’s not going to happen. Not anymore.”

“Scully, please, this is a misunderstanding. I’m sorry I tried to kiss you like that, I thought you felt the same way I do.” Another step towards and this time Scully takes two when she retreats. Somewhere along the way they stopped walking side by side. Somewhere they got lost.

“No, Mulder. Just let me go. This is – this was… well.” She smiles at him, sadly. She turns around, finally, and she feels rather than hears him come up behind her. She keeps on walking.

“Scully, please.” His voice is insistent. The same voice he used back then when he told her that nothing else mattered, nothing but his sister. Scully doesn’t think. Today is not a day for deep thoughts, for drawn out decisions. She does what feels right at this moment. She’s quit, she’s left and she’s done. It’s time to follow another path.

A year from now she’ll be a doctor again somewhere on the other side of the country. She’ll enjoy the long days in the sun just like she did when she was young. Her brother will introduce her to a nice man, a pediatric nurse and finally she can see herself settle down for real. It’ll be another two years before she hears Mulder’s name again. When she leaves, she leaves it all behind. If he sends her e-mails, she doesn’t know. She changes her phone number and doesn’t leave an address. Scully thinks he could find her if he really wanted to. He never does. She doesn’t think about him. Sometimes she dreams about him, wakes up with a start, reminds herself. Five years with him and she’s determined not to make it her whole life.

But in two year’s time she’ll hear about one Fox Mulder. The once brilliant, so very promising profiler who took up with strange cases called the x-files. The man who has dedicated his life to finding extraterrestrial life forms. Who tried to save his sister. His name will appear in a newspaper one sunny morning and Scully will touch her wedding band absent-mindedly while she reads, not quite used to the weight of it on her finger yet. She’ll gasp once when the words become a clear picture:

Special Agent Fox Mulder disappeared last week in Oregon.

“You all right, honey?” Her husband will ask leaning over her shoulder, always concerned.

“Yeah, I'm… fine.”

“Someone you know?”

“Long time ago.” Her husband will kiss her and leave for work. Scully, however, will sit there for long minutes. She’ll be frozen, thinking of this moment when she left him. Walking straight towards the elevator and never turning around. His whispered ‘Scully’ an unwanted sound in her ear, like a bee buzzing close by.

And on this bright, sunny day she can’t help but wonder… would it have been different if she’s turned around? Would it have been different had she never left?

But she’ll never know.


End file.
